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The 74th Hunger Games was the Hunger Games that serves as one of the primary driving events in the series. This Hunger Games was controversial as being the first in Panem's history to have two victors. The two victors, Katniss Everdeen and Peeta Mellark achieved this through attempting a double suicide with nightlock berries, which forced the Gamemakers into letting them win. Although perceived as an act of love by Katniss in trying to protect her love, Peeta Mellark by most of Capitol's citizens as well as a majority of the nation's populace, it was believed by some as an act of rebellion and defiance towards the Capitol, including President Snow. This act will ultimately be the one of the primary causes of the second rebellion soon to follow. It was the last Hunger Games to end with a victor(s) as the 75th Hunger Games was started but was never finished, with 6 tributes surviving.

* indicates a tribute who's portrayer was not seen in the bloodbath at all.
** indicates the tribute was portrayed by another actor portraying another tribute.

Victors

That year, for the first time ever, two tributes were allowed to win, Katniss Everdeen and Peeta Mellark. The two tributes were playing star-crossed lovers, each not wanting to kill the other. Despite Peeta pleading to Katniss to kill him after the Gamemakers stated that there would again only be one winner, she organized a plan to eat poisonous nightlock berries, to kill both of them, knowing the Capitol would rather have two victors than none. The Gamemakers, afraid of having no victor and humiliating the Capitol, ended the Games promptly, allowing two winners for the first time. However, this was seen as an act of rebellion towards the Capitol. Seneca Crane, the Head Gamemaker, was executed shortly after allowing this. President Snow became furious with Katniss after the Games ended due to her plan.

Arena

The arena for the 74th Hunger Games was a large, flat area with hard packed dirt that had the Cornucopia in the center of it. Like always, the 24 tributes were set up in a ring around the Cornucopia, which was filled with weapons, food and camp supplies as well as some types of medicine.

The arena contained forests, streams, meadows, pools, a wheat field, caves, and a lake. It was enormous, and it would probably haven taken a tribute several days to walk from one end of the arena to the other. In addition, there were some Capitol-made creatures, including tracker jackers and the wolf-like creatures. The forest was rigged with several Gamemaker-made traps, including a device that sent fireballs at the tributes and places where the mutts could come in and out of the arena. Around the arena is a fence of some sort of electric field (as learned in the second book).

Events in chronological order to the Book

The 74th Hunger Games lasted for 18 days. This is a short summary of the main events each day.

Day 1 (bloodbath): The tributes enter the arena. Katniss wants to run for the bow and arrows despite Haymitch's orders to run for the forest. She manages to get a backpack, but she grabs it at the same time the boy from District 9 does. She fights with him over the backpack, until he is killed by Clove. Clove then throws one of her knives at Katniss, but hits the backpack instead, and Katniss runs for the forest. She doesn't stop until it gets dark. She then straps herself to a tree to stay the night. The careers start hunting tributes.

Tributes Dead: District 3 female, District 4 male, District 5 male, both from District 6, both from District 7, District 8 male, both from District 9, and girl from 10.

Day 2: Shortly before dawn, Katniss witnesses Peeta and the Career pack kill the girl from District 8 who tried to warm herself by making a fire. Katniss can't figure out why Peeta has teamed up with the Careers. She feels betrayed. Since they didn't see her, she spends the day hunting and searching for water. It's the second day that Katniss has gone without water.

Tributes Dead: District 8 female

Day 3: Katniss, very weak and dehydrated, wonders why her sponsors haven't sent any water. By the afternoon, she collapses in mud, alerting her to the pond of water beside her. She purifies the water, drinks, eats, and later rests.

Tributes Dead: None

Day 4: Katniss is awakened by a wall of fire, which the Gamemakers have created. As she runs, she gets hit by a fireball on her calf, but manages to reach another pond by sunrise which eases her burns. While resting and recovering, Katniss hears the Careers coming towards her. They spot her and chase her into the forest. Katniss quickly hides in a tree where they can't reach her. Because they can't reach Katniss, they make camp under the tree to wait for Katniss to come down at some point. Katniss also gets her first sponsor gift: burn medicine for her leg and welted hands. When night falls, Rue appears in the tree next to her and points out the tracker jacker nest above Katniss' head. While the anthem plays, Katniss begins sawing at the branch that the nest is hanging from.

Tributes Dead: None

Day 5: At dawn, the tracker jacker nest finally fell on the ground and began to attack the Careers and Peeta. Glimmer and the girl from District 4 died from the stings. Rue escaped, but all the others, including Katniss, got stung. Katniss was able to get the bow and arrows from Glimmer's corpse shortly before the hovercraft took away Glimmer. She sees Peeta, but he sends her away instead of killing her just before Cato appears. Afterwards, Katniss was not able to tell if this really happened or not, because she was hallucinating from the tracker jacker venom. She then finally loses consciousness.

Tributes Dead: Glimmer, District 4 female

Day 6: According to Rue, Katniss slept for two nights. Her sleep was punctuated by several terrifying nightmares.

Tributes Dead: None

Day 7: Katniss finally wakes up from her fevery dreams and resumes hunting and seeking water. Rue, who must have been following her, appears, and teams up with Katniss. As she and Rue begin to fall asleep, Katniss begins formulating a plan.

Tributes Dead: None

Day 8: Rue and Katniss wake to the cannon shot for the boy from District 10, who was most likely killed by the Careers. Katniss and Rue made plans for destroying the Careers' stock of food and supplies. While Rue starts three fires in the woods which lure the Careers away from the Cornucopia, Katniss made it to the camp and discovered that the supplies were piled away from the camp and guarded by the boy from District 3. She sees Foxface carefully approach the pyramid of supplies to steal food and discovers by her movement that the Careers had buried the mines from the starting platforms around the stock. Katniss blows the whole stock up by shooting an arrow through a net of apples, which fall and trigger the mines. The explosion blows her off her feet, causing her to go deaf in her left ear, but she manages to crawl under a bush just as the Careers arrive. Cato is so furious that he kill the District 3 boy by breaking his neck. Katniss spends the night under a bush.

Tributes Dead: District 3 male District 10 male

Day 9: When she awakens, Katniss is still deaf in her left ear, but the right one can hear Foxface laughing at the Careers' loss. She returns to the rendezvous spot, but since Rue has not returned, she spends the afternoon in a tree to wait, but later decides to search for her. At first finding no sign of Rue, she eventually heard Rue's four note tune coming from the mockingjays, then her scream. When Katniss finds her, Rue was captured in a net by Marvel, the boy from District 1, who kills her by tossing a spear through her abdomen before Katniss can free her. Immediately, Katniss kills him by shooting an arrow in his neck, then frees Rue from the net but can't help her except hold her and sing to her until she dies. Then she arranges wild flowers around the body as one last act of their alliance and defiance to the Capitol, for making them pawns in their twisted game. She walks away without really knowing where to go or what to do, when a parachute arrives with a loaf of bread from District 11, Rue's district.

Tributes Dead: Marvel, Rue

Day 10: Feeling lost, Katniss forces herself to sort her supplies and hunt. She thinks about revenge on the Careers for Rue's death. In the evening, the Gamemakers announce a change to the rules of the game: there can be two victors if they come from the same district. Suddenly, Katniss goes to find Peeta.

Tributes Dead: None

Day 11: Katniss follows the stream, hoping to find Peeta. She finds him buried and covered in his self made camouflage at a river bank. He is so weak and badly injured that he can't get out there alone anymore, so Katniss pulls him out, washes him and tends to his stings, burns, fever, and the cut on his leg. They both seek shelter in a cave, but Peeta's fever isn't going away. To keep him from speaking pessimistically, Katniss kisses him, which also keeps up the appearance of being "madly in love." Promptly, a parachute arrives containing food that Peeta desperately needs.

Tributes Dead: None

Day 12: Peeta's fever has broken, but Katniss is exhausted and Peeta makes her sleep the rest of the morning. By afternoon, Peeta's leg has gotten worse: he has blood poisoning. Katniss spends the day hunting and cooking while Peeta lies in the cave. In the evening, the Gamemakers announce that there will be a feast at the Cornucopia tomorrow, where every tribute will find what they most desperately need. Immediately, Peeta makes Katniss promise not to go because its too dangerous. Later on, a parachute arrives from Haymitch containing sleep syrup, with which Katniss can knock out Peeta for the whole time she needs to get to the Cornucopia and get the medicine. She leaves before dawn.

Tributes Dead: None

Day 13: Katniss reaches the Cornucopia and finds Foxface running out of the Cornucopia to grab her backpack immediately after they're placed. Katniss makes a run for it, but is attacked by Clove. Katniss shoots an arrow at her but misses. Clove knocks Katniss down and holds her to the ground with a knife at her face, mocking Katniss about being in love with Peeta and how Katniss couldn't save Rue. Just as Clove begins to cut Katniss, Thresh arrives and kills Clove by smashing her skull with a stone. He then lets Katniss get her bag and run, because he feels like he owes her for what she did for Rue. Katniss is able to get back to the cave and inject Peeta with the medicine before she loses consciousness.

Tributes Dead: Clove

Day 14: When Katniss awakes having bled a lot overnight, she finds Peeta feeling much better than before. He has bandaged her forehead, and continues to care for her. A storm rages outside, so they stay inside and try to recover the whole day. They kiss for the first time.

Tributes Dead: None

Day 15: The storm continues preventing any hunting and gathering. Katniss and Peeta both feel much better and finally get closer to each other. They kiss again, and immediately Haymitch sends them a huge feast. At night, they discover from the daily announcements that Thresh has been killed during the day. Overnight, the rain stops suddenly.

Tributes Dead: Thresh

Day 16: Katniss and Peeta go out for hunting and collecting berries and roots. Peeta unwittingly collects poisonous nightlock berries. When Katniss finds him collecting them, a cannon fires. Only a few meters away, Foxface's body is lifted to the Hovercraft. She stole the berries from Peeta, and died. Katniss takes the berries and plans to use them later to trick Cato. They return to the cave.

Tributes Dead: Foxface

Day 17: Since Cato is the only remaining tribute among Katniss and Peeta, they go to find him. They find him running right into them, but he is also running from something far more dangerous: a pack of mutant wolves. All three run to the Cornucopia, where they try to rescue themselves by climbing it. In that process, Peeta gets bitten by one of the mutts and loses a lot of blood. Weakened like this, Cato can reach him and strangle him, standing near the edge on the top of the Cornucopia. Katniss realizes that she can't kill Cato without having Peeta to be pulled down by him too, she shoots an arrow in Cato's hand. This makes him loosen his grip, he trips and falls over. Katniss and Peeta watch him fight the mutts for about an hour, then he collapses, but they are unable to kill him, due to his body armour. He is still alive when the night comes.

Tributes Dead: None

Day 18: At dawn, Katniss finally shoots Cato with her last arrow, as an act of mercy. The mutts disappear. They climb down the Cornucopia. This is when a voice announces, that the previous made change of rules is withdrawn and that there can only be one victor. Peeta and Katniss face each other as enemies against their will. None of them wants to kill the other, besides from them being halfway dead anyway. Then Katniss remembers the berries. Only a glimpse before they both can commit suicide by poisoning themselves, they are both announced as the victors of the 74th Hunger Games.

Tributes Dead: Cato

Uniform

"The material in the jacket is designed to reflect body heat. Expect some cool nights."

Book

The uniforms were brand new, and were the same for every tribute (except for the label on the side with the number of the tribute's district). Tokens could be worn with them, as long as they couldn't be used as an advantage to a tribute. Cinna hid Katniss' mockingjay pin when he puts her uniform on her. The outfit was:

- a pair of simple fitted tawny trousers with many pockets.

- a light green shirt.

- a sturdy brown belt with a large buckle.

- a thin, hooded black jacket that falls down to the thighs and zips up the front.

- leather boots with narrow, grippy soles.

- skin-tight socks.

Film

The outfits remains largely the same as the book, but with different materials and styles, trending towards futuristic and functional. The film outfit was:

- a pair of loose, olive cargo pants with many pockets all over. The ankles are cuffed and tucked into the boot straps.

- a light cotton shirt. Girls were given v-necks and the boys were given crew-necks. The shirt was a lighter or darker shade of the jacket colour.

- a wide belt with a large buckle that wraps loosely around the jacket twice.

- a double lined jacket with multiple features, intended to be the most appealing part of the outfit. The inner layer was very warm and fitted, made of thick fleecy cotton. The jacket had a reflective tape of orange material around the hem. The outer shell was extremely thin, made of only a double layer of thin parachute nylon. Grey strips of reflective material ran down the arms, across the shoulders, and along the back and spine. There were drawstrings on the hood and waist, and a zipper up the front. The inner layer had tabs on the bottom that attach to the outer zipper so the inner layer can be zipped up. The jackets were a different color for each tribute.

Impression

When Katniss and Peeta pulled out the nightlock berries, it was interpreted as a sign of rebellion by many people of the districts which led to uprisings. Katniss wanted to show that if Peeta and herself could not live, then there would be no victor. The official reason, given in interviews, was that they did it so they both would survive, as neither wanted to live without the other. The underlying reason was that the Hunger Games had to have a victor, so Katniss thought of nightlock to kill them both and leave the Games without a winner. This move caused increasing problems. President Snow came to Katniss' house and threatened her and Gale in Catching Fire and decreased her chances of survival for her and her family and friends.